Television

Caroline Flack, a well-known television personality and former host of ITV’s “Love Island” and other shows in Britain, died on Saturday in London. She was 40.The Associated Press, citing a statement from her family, confirmed her death. A lawyer for the family said she had died by suicide and was found in her home, The A.P. reported.In 2015, Ms. Flack began hosting “Love Island,” a British dating-reality show on which the public voted off their favorite “islanders” until one couple remained.She was replaced in December after being charged with assault after an episode involving her boyfriend, the tennis star Lewis Burton, The Guardian reported.“Caroline was a much loved member of the ‘Love Island’ team and our sincere thoughts and condolences are with her family and friends,” ITV, which broadcasts the show, said on Twitter.Laura Whitmore, who replaced Ms. Flack as the show’s host, said on Twitter that she was “trying to find the words but I can’t.”Ms. Flack’s management agency and team were not immediately available for comment on Saturday.Ms. Flack was no stranger to reality television.In 2014, she won “Strictly Come Dancing” with her dance partner Pasha Kovalev and also hosted several other shows, including “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! Now!” and “Xtra Factor,” according to ITV.Ms. Flack, who had several famous partners including Prince Harry and Harry Styles, is a fixture in the British tabloids. She also had to deal with their incessant prying and constant criticism.She once told The Sun, “Not everyone is going to like you, so you have to filter it.”The Sun, which had blanket coverage of the assault allegations against Ms. Flack, called her “Caroline Whack” in a December story.The tabloid faced online backlash in the aftermath of Ms. Flack’s death as social media users attacked it for its articles about her. At one point, #dontbuythesun and #thescum were both trending on Twitter.While “Love Island” is a wildly popular show in Britain, it has raised issues about mental health.Two previous contestants died by suicide, Sophie Gradon in 2018 and Mike Thalassitis in 2019. Their deaths stirred a debate in Britain over the ethics of reality television and the duty that broadcasters have to care for contestants.ITV released new guidelines in May to promote contestants’ well-being and also offered contestants “training on dealing with social media.”If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.Aimee Ortiz contributed reporting. More

What’s on TVTHE THING ABOUT HARRY (2020) 8 p.m. on Freeform. Created by the ABC-friendly Peter Paige — who directed “The Fosters” and its spinoff, “Good Trouble” — “The Thing About Harry” is a heartwarming rom-com that debuts just after Valentine’s Day. The movie, which takes place on the holiday itself, details the unraveling of a high school grudge between Sam (Jake Borelli) and Harry (Niko Terho) when they find themselves on a long road trip together. Sam, who has been proudly gay and uniquely himself since high school, has failed to get along with Harry, a former jock. But as the two spend time together, Sam learns that Harry is also gay, opening up the possibility for romance. The cast is supplemented by Netflix stars Britt Baron and Karamo Brown.SHAFT (2019) 8 p.m. on HBO. This fifth installation of the “Shaft” movies unites three generations of John Shafts: two detectives-gone-rogue and one M.I.T.-educated millennial. The 2019 version finds success in its characters and their dialogues, and the depiction of John Shaft (Samuel L. Jackson) shifts from an action hero to a politically incorrect dad. The Shaft newcomer, JJ (Jessie T. Usher), essentially serves as a reminder of contemporary issues and as a catalyst for shootouts. However, “story coherence has never been the point with Shaft,” A.O. Scott reminds us in his review in The New York Times. He adds: “He’s all about presence and presentation, and the grace and guile required to deal with the bad guys, the Man and of course all those women.” Jackson — who revived the series — stars again, and Richard Roundtree — the original Shaft — returns as JJ’s great-uncle.What’s StreamingBECAUSE OF WINN-DIXIE Stream on Disney Plus. Rent on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vudu and YouTube. This story of a 10-year-old girl, her father, a small Southern town and a dog named Winn-Dixie is based on the 2000 Kate DiCamillo novel with the same title. It begins when Opal Buloni (AnnaSophia Robb) and her father (Jeff Daniels) move into a trailer park in a sleepy Florida town called Naomi. One day, Opal finds a stray dog wreaking havoc in a grocery store, and she decides to take him home. With the help of her new friend, whom she names Winn-Dixie (after the grocery store), Opal is able to connect with the residents of Naomi and with her closed-off father. In her review for The Times, Anita Gates wrote, “It has old-fashioned and heartwarming written all over it, in heavy black Magic Marker. ”UTOPIA FALLS Stream on Hulu. In this futuristic sci-fi series, which takes place in the last surviving human colony on earth, ancestral worship and societal status are achieved through an annual music-and-dance competition for which 24 teenagers are invited to partake. When one of the contestants, Aliyah (Robyn Alomar), discovers the long-lost genre hip-hop, she begins to question the values her colony is based upon. As the series progresses, she and other competitors use hip-hop to establish freedom from their government. More

Season 1, Episode 4: ‘Absolute Candor’I didn’t expect another episode of setup this week, but Jeri Ryan’s first appearance as Seven Of Nine at the end made the payoff worth it. Still, this was the first episode of the season that felt a bit extemporaneous, after the tight storytelling of the first three installments.Picard decides to take the expedition to find Bruce Maddox on a detour to the planet Vashti, a Romulan relocation site, where a group of what appears to be sword-wielding Romulan nuns called the Qowat Milat reside. An early flashback shows that Picard was a god of sorts here when he was leading the effort to rescue Romulans from the supernova.A few words on the Qowat Milat: This is a group of secretive female warriors who believe in complete and total transparency in all things. And somehow they are still Romulan, in spite of rejecting all of the traditional Romulan values. On one hand, I applaud the writers for finding new and novel ways to explore and flesh out a traditional Trek villain. And yet: A new bunch of Romulan warriors who totally eschew Romulan traits seemed a bit off to me, given the amount of interactions “Trek” heroes have had with Romulans over the years. (I’m torn on this: Romulans are also traditionally secretive so perhaps it makes sense that this discovery is relatively recent.)From the Department of Coincidences: The group Picard is fighting is the Tal Shiar sect, Zhat Vash, and the planet the Romulan warriors are on is Vashti. I’m wondering if this will come into play later.This episode also reveals one of the closest things Picard has ever had to a child, Elnor. Elnor (Evan Evagora) is angry at Picard for abandoning him 14 years ago, when the synthetics attacked Mars. Since then, he has become quite a warrior himself and is perceptive in realizing that one of Picard’s flaws is that if something is not happening right in front him, he is generally uninterested, as Raffi can attest to. Even so, Elnor joins Picard on the quest, but not before beheading a former Romulan senator who threatens him. (Yikes! “Trek” is rarely this dark! And is anyone going to mention that Elnor seems oddly similar to Elrond from “Lord of the Rings”? Was this intentional? I must know.)And of course, we have our first space battle in this episode, featuring Picard’s mode of transport, La Sirena. Side note: Was Jurati … very awkwardly flirting with Rios? For the love of all the Prophets, please give her something else to do. In the meantime, Rios — one of the best pilots in the galaxy, we are told — has some difficulty outmaneuvering an ancient Klingon Bird of Prey. That ship is purportedly being piloted by a pirate who has taken over the sector, although we never see said pirate. (This, of course, isn’t the first time a seemingly superior ship has trouble with an old Klingon ship. This is a “Trek” trope as old as time.)Over on the Borg cube, Narek and Soji are still doing their thing. The scene where they both slide down a hallway as a “Borg ritual” was something else. Again, I’m not sure where this is going, but Narek awkwardly interrogating Soji, post romantic-slide, should be the first example in the “what not to do” chapter of the Spy Handbook.What are we doing here guys? If you want to know why Soji wasn’t listed on a previous passenger manifest, at least put a ring on it first! Eventually, Rizzo shows up to seductively stroke her brother and then choke him. None of that is a typo, and I’m not entirely clear how she was able to do any of this, given that she is supposed to be a projection.I’m having some fun with this episode because I’m a fun guy. But I did find the scenes on Vashti fairly compelling, because I appreciate exploring new terrain and Patrick Stewart fencing with a child makes for an enjoyable visual. This episode, directed by the upcoming cast member Jonathan Frakes, just felt a little distracting to me. However, seeing Seven at the end was joyous.My assumption is that next week, we head to Freecloud with our favorite former Borg drone and we’ll learn what she has been up to. More